I'll never forget, one of the dev's had given his real name as part of selling the new realid integration to the forum, it was micah something. Some player, I don't remember who, within 15 minutes had posted an entire history of this guy including address, phone number, and the fact that he still lived with his parents, in addition to a bunch of other private information one could only get from a background check. I suspect the player worked in some kind of industry with access to background checks.

I can't say for sure if this had an impact on Blizzard's decision to abandon this horrible idea, but I'd like to think it did.

I remember this.

The whole idea scared the everloving bejesus out of me. I remember running 39 and 49 twinks around this time and getting level 1 alt hate IM/Tells several times a week. I cannot even imagine if something equivalent happened with real life info. You're sitting there after a BG afk and your phone rings and it's some blocked number calling you a POS telling you they have your name, number, address and they're an hour a way.

This was definitely a horrible idea. Would you want a player who was "Kill on sight." to you and/or your friends or guild to have access to all of your personal information?

Making raiding easier was absolutely essential. The game would be dead by now if they hadn't done that; the tiny fraction of players who actually do difficult content wouldn't have supported it. Arguably they haven't gone far enough.

And i disagree with this, since i think many people quit because they do not gain the same satisfaction as they used to while raiding. Wiping for a week and then killing a boss is way more satisfactory than just doing it in 5 tries.

Thankfully, Blizzard didn't go through with it.. the community rallied hard against it, and I've never seen so many people in the wow community of such like minds. Blizz gracefully bowed out with something to the effect of "we're revising our plan due to player feedback", and it was never heard of again.

We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.

However as the ICO pointed out (Information Commissioner’s Office):

A spokesman said there was unlikely to be enforcement action because Blizzard didn't actually apply the controversial changes, which would have violated data protection guidelines. Blizzard would have needed to tell people up front that it intended to use their real names on forums rather than using data (in this case real names) for reasons outside those explained at the time the data was collected.

So ask yourself if the forum QQ from people who always forum QQ was the reason, or the fact that they couldn't do it (well they could have so long as they don't mind staggering fines...) because of the laws they'd have been breaking in every European country.

"The fact that you don't get it or like it is fine. The fact that you wanna ruin it for everyone else - that's why you're a cocksucker." - Bill Hicks

Originally Posted by Darsithis

The playerbase has been desiring this for years and when it's finally here, everyone wants to grab a pitchfork. Ridiculous. This community is disgustingly toxic.

Please send all PM's with a read receipt, that way both you and I will know I'm not reading them....

And i disagree with this, since i think many people quit because they do not gain the same satisfaction as they used to while raiding. Wiping for a week and then killing a boss is way more satisfactory than just doing it in 5 tries.

Considering how many ex-wow players there are, and considering how many people did the raids before Wrath, I cannot see how the people you describe can be anything but a fairly small minority of those who left.

"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"Almost every time I have gotten to know a critic personally, they keep up with the criticism but lose the venom." -- Ghostcrawler
I hate these casual Fridays ruining it for real Fridays.

The reason it seemed like there were less asses then is of how long it took to get groups, meaning less dungons, unless you did them with a set group. And you knew who to avoid on your server.
Edit: 100th post. I am an overlord, Haaaaahahahahahaha.